


The Missing Ingredient

by Limey (The_Vox)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, Powerful Harry, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:53:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Vox/pseuds/Limey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the Half-Blood Prince, what would have happened if a small change was made? What if, by pure chance, there was no bezoar nearby when Ron was poisoned?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Missing Ingredient

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo.
> 
> Someone on reddit said something about this. It was Saturday so I obliged my hibernating creative side to put their idea into words. Let me know what you think.
> 
> What if the conveniently located bezoar was not-so-conveniently ... missing?

Harry slumped lower into the couch in Slughorn's office. How stupid he was! Really! Leaving those chocolates on his bed, where anybody could have eaten them – where Ron _did_ eat them! He was such an idiot. Stupid, stupid idiot! Blame settled inside him in a dull . . . but amid these thoughts he was overwhelmingly relieved. Ron wasn't hurt, that's what mattered. This thoughtwas cathartic, calming. He slowly let out the breath he’d been holding.

"There’s a good lad,” said professor Slughorn. He was helping Ron up from the chair he’d been remanded on. The professor asked Ron to stand still then started casting spells that looked like faint clouds which covered and seeped into Ron's body looking for any remnants of the love potion in his system.

Harry looked at Slughorn as he worked on Ron, casting spells at his friend in intervals and making more promising _hums_ as he did. He felt a surge of admiration. Mere minutes ago he had thought the man vain and . . . well . . . a Slytherin. Seeing the care that he dealt with Ron; and watching him create and administer an antidote, after _only_ hearing that Ron’s state was caused by an aged love potion... He felt incredibly guilty and ashamed for his old prejudices against the man. He resolved to get to know him better - get to know anyone better, before he made such bad character judgements againe.

Was this part of Slughorn he was seeing now what drew his mother to the man in her own school years? Slughorn’s talent was undeniable, and he felt doubly the idiot when Slughorn said offhand that creating the antidote was a “trifling thing" to he and Ron.

A final spell shimmered along Ron's skin and vanished into the air.

"Excellent news," cried Slughorn, "I can tell you now there's no more of that foul potion in you Mr Weasley."

Ron sighed heavily.

"Thank you sir," said Harry.

Slughorn shrugged. "As I said, the antidote is really nothing out of your grasp - though of course you were correct in coming straight to me to brew it."

Harry gulped, and shared a look at Ron. They couldn't brew what the professor just had. Harry didn't even know what the name of the antidote was.

Slughorn added, pushing Ron back into the couch where Harry sat, "You'll be best to sleep this off Mr Weasley, and when you wake be free to make the wrong choices once more – this time your own doing!" Slughorn laughed.

Ron was quiet, meanwhile Slughorn cleared away what he used to create the antidote. Harry looked at Ron, and noticed Ron was gripping the arm of settee tightly. Harry opened his mouth but Ron spoke -

“It was like,” said Ron, breathing heavily. “Like being under Moody’s _Imperius_ all over again. I couldn’t control myself – I couldn’t think straight.” Ron looked to Harry then. “I-I… Thanks . . . for stopping me,” he said. He sagged in relief after saying that, as though he’d rid himself of something virulent.

Harry responded by shrugging, feeling a little awkward, and Ron punched his shoulder.

“Hey!” said Harry. “It can’t have been worse than the slugs - or the spiders?”

Ron snorted though he did pale a little. “Not even close.”

Professor Slughorn finished tidying away the last of his ingredients a few minutes later. Harry and Ron had spent the remaining time in idle conversation; they discussed the love potion, swearing revenge on the person who’d ruined their day with it – they were in agreement that Romilda Vane was at fault.

“All’s right now, boys?” said Slughorn, with a large smile on his face. His previously serious expression, no doubt a result of the work he was performing, had given way to his customary good nature.

“I’m much better _– I think_ ,” replied Ron. He frowned as though testing some internal mechanical gears only he knew of, and for some reason, he became even more wary.

Harry struggled to contain his amusement watching him aand chuckled.

Slughorn laughed too, saying: “We’ll be covering antidotes in the curriculum soon enough, in month you’ll be more than familiar with creating the little thing I just brewed.”

The single window that was in professor Slughorn’s comfortable office was showing the night sky now. All of them seemed to notice this at the same time.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Slughorn. He threw back his head and laughed, holding his rather large belly. “I seem to have kept you past curfew, boys. However,” he looked at the both of them and his face displayed mischief, “I’ve come into possession of a rare liquor that I wouldn’t mind some assistance with…”

Harry and Ron cottoned on instantly, their thoughts going back to the cask of Ogden’s Firewhisky that was secured under Neville’s bed – Neville was clueless about it, of course.

“I – I might be umm… partial?” said Ron.

Harry and the professor just looked at him, then Harry broke into chuckles. A moment later they were all laughing.

Slughorn whipped his wand out and aimed it towards the door, which was still ajar from their sudden entrance. The door shut soundly with a faint hiss. Slughorn sent a few other spells at it that they couldn’t discern, but the professor sent them a comfortingsmile and became, somehow, even more jovial. He laughed the entire way to a cabinet on one side of his office, there he selected three fine glasses, and walked back to them in the centre of the room.

They stood facing each other. Harry and Ron were handed a crystalline glass, then Slughorn brought out the collaborating bottle. Harry thought it looked very fine - definitely expensive. Ron eyed it as though it were a sack-full of galleons. It was certainly above the quality of liquor that Harry had tried.

“I previously had designs to gift this to the headmaster, but…” he winked at the boys, “I became somewhat attached to it, then my attention to it cooled over the Christmas period. Simple forgetfulness, of course! But now, I think, it could be the perfect drink to end our day – which has rather fallen by the wayside!” Slughorn poured them all a careful measure of the liquid.

“I must apologise for not preparing a suitable toast,” said Slughorn. “Be that as it may, I have thought of something appropriate for these hard time we find ourselves in: -

“To Harry Potter!” said the professor, “and his excellent friend Ron Weasley – _who art in good health_ ,” he joked, and they laughed. “May the world ever be your oyster, and always to your good fortune!”

The glasses clinked together in the air. They cheered _“To good fortune!”_

Ron drank his glass deeply, before the other two. The less eager two shared an amused look as Ron savoured the burning of his throat, and they followed Ron’s lead.

The fluid burned as it went down Harry’s throat, and an intense oaken flavour seeped into his tongue. Magical sensations – for they could only be magical – played at his senses. Then a curious buzz like static popped and fizzed in his mouth.

Harry had been looking at Slughorn as he drank, and the professor drank even more deeply and more eagerly as Ron. The professor, a split second later, cried out in horror and sprayed the fluid out across the room. His eyes were bloodshot, and his pupils were thin, terrified slits. Harry jumped back as the liquor sprayed across the room. He looked at the professor’s wild eyes. Then Ron fell to the floor screaming.

Harry stared at Ron in shock and made the connection to Slughorn’s intense reaction. Overwhelming dread seeped into him like a malignant dementor. Poison! His eyes searched for the bottle and damned it all to hell then - His gut _burned!_ Immediate, overpowering, dizzying pain! He felt as though he was speared straight through with a white-hot poker.  He gripped the flesh of his stomach in a white-knuckled fist, to tear the rampaging liquor out through the skin – Anything! Anything to escape this! Every matter of his being screamed at him.

The suffering didn't end quickly. Instead Harry thought it seemed to get worse, spread further and more deeply in his body. Even with eyes sightless with fire - he breathed; rapid, faint gasps kept him a fingernail from suffocation. He hadn’t the control to screw his eyes shut. He stared ahead with pupils like needles, which took nothing in, and displayed outwardly the full extent of his torment. Harry rolled onto his side and choked up his blood as organ, blood, and bone ceased. Sinewy structure gave way to the tide contained minutes before in deceiving glass.

Every limb shook uncontrollably, caught in a violent internal breeze that cracked and popped joint and bone like dead wood. His skin seemed to sink into his body like wet parchment. His lips and the skin around his eyes curled into his body grotesquely, the moisture stolen from them. He was becoming a carcass.

All of them suffered this miserable existence; all thinking, knowing with certainty, that their ghoulish deaths would be evidenced by their liquefied remains; found by some sorry person, come morning, in speechless horror. They were dying. And there was nothing they could do. Not a thing!

Harry didn’t black out. Minutes passed like hours before the burning dimmed. His sight was limited. Very narrow, as though he were looking through a drinking straw, and he felt distant from his surroundings, even the distance to the floor felt somehow stretched away. He could only see in detail his hand: pale, trembling, and red, with veins and bone almost bursting through the skin. The perspective of his hand somehow settled his mind and forced on him the perspective of the room. He coughed and almost screamed from the pain it caused. He curled into a tight ball closed his eyes.

_Don't die Potter. Don't die. DON'T DIE!_

He breathed in and out. In and out. The pain was tremendous, almost numbing. _Had he been too hurt? Would this kill him?_

_...The one with the power..._

Don't die. _The Cruciatus is worse_ _._

Was it?

_...Neither can live while the other survives..._

Don't die. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Open your eyes.

He did. His eyeballs felt like they were on fire. He kept them open. Forced his muscles to keep them open. He could see the room now. The ceiling, the floor, the grey stone walls.  _Breathe._ Table, chairs, crystalline glass shards on the floor. _breat_ _he_. _In and out._ In and out . . . in and out.

A memory came to mind. Fourth year. Triwizard. Cruciatus. He didn't die then. Wouldn't die now.  _Will not die now._

Get up Potter.

He raised himself to his elbows. The room span at the movement and his limbs seemed leaden and anchored heavily and tightly to the floor. Every breath came out as a pained hiss that plucked at the fleshy ruin of his throat.

On his elbows he was able to see what had become of the Ron and the professor: they weren’t moving, and the portions of their faces that he could see looked hideous. Ron’s face, turned towards him, was a horrible sight that left him numb. The skin had sunk inwardly, crudely displaying the shape of the underlying skull. His lips looked like dried-out fruits. The professor was not where he had fallen; he had crawled towards where he stored his ingredients in a corner of the room. There he had attempted to pry open a draw, but failed.

Harry, still riddled with raw pain that relentlessly tore at him from his toes to his scalp, crawled towards the professor. Movement was slow; and he heard himself crying when he moved past Ron’s body, though no tears came. Reaching the professor he pulled the man’s face towards him, crying out in shock when he saw the damage inflicted. Slughorn’s throat was now a sunken indentation underneath his chin, and blood pooled at the back of his throat, overflowing from his mouth onto the stone floor.

Harry reached past the professor towards the ingredients. He knew what the professor would be searching for, and he pulled himself further forward to look inside the drawer. All it contained where transparent plastic bags, each filled with ingredients that he couldn't make out at a glance, fortunately the bags had small writing on them. He picked up the bags individually and brought them close to his face to read them. He cried out when his body convulsed periodically. He dropped the bags as he discarded the incorrect ingredients, and he had nearly forty of the packets when he found the bag that read: _bezoars._

It was empty. Faint dust clung to the inside of the packet. Harry stared at it disbelievingly, disturbed into pained shock as a powerful convulsion shook him. He opened the packet and emptied it into his mouth, feeling his lips tear as he opened them. Another convulsion came, more powerful than before, and a torrent of blood bubbled out of his mouth and down his cheeks, pooling in the sunken crevices of his face.

He started trembling and lay down on his side clutching his stomach, his head laying against professor Slughorn's stomach. Then, looking finally at the back of Ron's head, he closed his eyes.

_Don't die Potter._

Don't die.

The world went black.

*

*


End file.
